02094cam a22002657 4500001000600000003000500006005001700011008004100028100002000069245012400089260006600213490004100279500001600320520094800336530006101284538007201345538003601417690006201453690009901515700002301614710004201637830007601679856003701755856003601792w5959NBER20190915090828.0190915s1997 mau||||fs|||| 000 0 eng d1 aRiker, David A.10aU.S. Multinationals and Competition from Low Wage Countriesh[electronic resource] /cDavid A. Riker, S. Lael Brainard. aCambridge, Mass.bNational Bureau of Economic Researchc1997.1 aNBER working paper seriesvno. w5959 aMarch 1997.3 aIt is often argued that the globalization of production places workers in industrialized countries in competition with their counterparts in low wage countries. We examine a firm-level panel of foreign manufacturing affiliates owned by U.S. multinationals between 1983 and 1992 and find evidence to the contrary. Affiliate activities in developing countries appear to be complementary to rather than substituting for affiliate activities in industrialized countries. Workers do compete across affiliates, but the competition is between affiliates in countries with similar workforce skill levels. The results suggest that multinationals with affiliates in countries at different stages of development decompose production across borders into complementary stages that differ by skill intensity. The implied complementarity of traded intermediate inputs has important implications for the empirical debate over trade, employment, and wages. aHardcopy version available to institutional subscribers. aSystem requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files. aMode of access: World Wide Web. 7aJ23 - Labor Demand2Journal of Economic Literature class. 7aF23 - Multinational Firms • International Business2Journal of Economic Literature class.1 aBrainard, S. Lael.2 aNational Bureau of Economic Research. 0aWorking Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research)vno. w5959.4 uhttp://www.nber.org/papers/w595941uhttp://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w5959